Rajasthan provides India soon an alternative to green tea

NEW DELHI: The Rajasthan will provide very soon India an alternative to green tea by the help of olive tea.

According to State Agriculture Minister Prabhu Lal Saini , the Olive Tea will be launched “very soon” by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje .

“The process has been completed and we will launch it very soon as we get time from the chief minister. It will be the first time in the country and the world that a green tea alternative will be produced out of olive leaves,” he said.

Rajasthan started cultivating olives in 2007 by the collaboration of Israel, but at the present time, the state cultivates them on 5,000 hectares, he added.

An olive refinery is operational in the state at Bikaner, also the country’s first. We have also begun production of olive honey,” he said.

Saini said, “I am a PhD in Agriculture and I know olive leaves have several health benefits.
So I decided to get some study and lab testing done about it.” He showed several papers with findings of the lab studies.

A lab test, conducted in July, confirmed the presence of several anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory and other such substances in the olive leaves. One of the substances found was Luteolin.

According to report, “Experiments with Luteolin show that it suppresses bacteria-induced inflammation. Luteolin is an oxygen scavenger”.

He said the lab tests confirmed the presence of “such strong anti-oxidant” in olive leaves that they can help prevent several types of cancer — blood cancer, prostate cancer and ovaries cancer.